Chapter 9 #2
She shrugged. Tombeur had been gone for hours now. Was he coming back? Had she alienated herself from him by sharing her feelings, by throwing herself at him?
“Darcy. Today…earlier today,” continued Jack, forcing her to concentrate on his words. “Did you experience something strange?”
Darcy raised her eyes to his, glancing at his mouth, the very lips that haunted her dreams, waking and sleeping. “Strange?”
“Like being pulled into a dream?”
She had, of course, experienced something like that against the side of Tombeur’s cabin, and her fingers moved, of their own accord, to touch her lips.
“It’s you,” she murmured.
“Yes,” said Jack. “It was me.”
“How?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know exactly.”
“I know that…” She stopped, unable to hold his gaze, which was so searing, so desperate. She picked up an iron poker and kneeled in front of the fire, rearranging the crackling logs. “I know that we were bound.”
“Yes. We were.”
Jack cleared his throat and stepped around the chair to sit down, but made no move to reach for her or touch her, which was relieving.
“Tombeur said you loved me,” she said.
“I love you right this minute, right now, more than ever,” he whispered in a rush, and her traitorous heart leaped.
“But truly,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “I don’t remember you.”
“Nothing?”
Darcy thought about her dreams and shook her head, feeling frustrated and wishing she could cut bait with the past and sever whatever threads still bound her to the strange man sitting in front of her so she was free to follow her heart.
But something about the way he looked at her made it impossible for her to lie to him out loud.
“Your face. I see it in my dreams. And your…” She placed the poker against the flagstone fireplace and pressed her fingers to her own lips, speaking in a whisper. “Lips. I feel them. I smell old velvet. I hear your voice. I don’t know you, but something inside of me does.”
He exhaled strongly, licking his lips before pursing them together. “Will you let me kiss you tomorrow? At the Gathering?”
Panic sluiced through her veins like ice water, and she shook her head quickly, sitting back in her chair and leaning away from him. “No.”
“You dream of me. Some part of you is holding on to me. Why won’t you give me a chance? Give us a chance, Darcy? Please, baby…”
His voice had grown stronger and more desperate, making her heart throb with fear and confusion.
“Because I don’t want you,” she snapped at him.
“Some part of you does.”
“But more of me wants Tom.”
“He’s binding himself to my mother,” Jack growled between clenched teeth.
“Not if I kiss him first,” gasped Darcy.
Jack roared his disapproval, and suddenly he kneeled on the floor before her as she had kneeled in front of Tombeur hours before. He reached for her face, palming her cheeks firmly but gently, and taking advantage of her shock to force her to look at him.
“Look at me!”
Her surprise wore off quickly, and she struggled to release her face from his grip, but he was much stronger than she was.
To release herself, she’d have to shift, but Tombeur had been teaching her to control her emotional shifts, and she evened out her breathing, sheathing her claws and staring into Jack Beauloup’s furious eyes.
“I will not force you,” he vowed. “But I love you more than my own life. I will belong to you until the day I die. And I am begging you to give us another chance.”
Moved by his words, her jaw went slack, her lips parting as she flicked her eyes to his mouth, then back to his eyes.
Something in them was familiar, heartbreaking even, and her own heart throbbed and ached, as though in grief or with longing, even as her brain couldn’t conjure a single strong memory of her time with him.
Hot tears escaped from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she stared back at him, feeling helpless, confused, and frightened.
“Please go,” she sobbed.
His breath caught as his thumbs gently stroked her cheeks, wiping away her tears. The deep sadness in his eyes was so profound, she thought she’d drown in it before he bent his neck and dropped his hands. A moment later, the sound of the front door slamming reverberated through the small room.
“Darcy? Hey, kid, wake up.”
Willow’s voice invaded the tumult of her dreams, a welcome reprieve from reliving Jack Beauloup’s intense, immense sorrow.
“Willow?” she said, focusing on her friend’s dark eyes in front of her. Just as Jack had kneeled before her last night, Willow took his place now, her hands on Darcy’s knees and her expression worried.
“Did you sleep in this chair all night?”
Darcy looked around the small room. The fire had burned out hours ago, and thready morning light streamed through the windows. “I was waiting for Tom to come home. And then Jack…”
“Jack?”
“It felt like a dream, but I know he was here.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“He mostly talked,” said Darcy miserably.
“He speaks to me like he knows me, like he loves me.” She sighed heavily.
“And sometimes I feel like I know him. Like from another life. Like a déjà vu. But nothing solid, nothing real. He wants to kiss me, and I can’t imagine just kissing a stranger, let alone kissing him and suddenly being bound to him for life. I can’t. It’s too…”
“Scary,” said Willow, slipping onto Tombeur’s chair, where she perched on the edge.
Darcy winced at her friend. “It took you a lifetime to let Amory into your life, into your heart. I’m supposed to let a total stranger kiss me? Sleep with me? Have sex with me? I’m supposed to have his children? Spend my life with him when I don’t know him at all? How am I supposed to do that?”
Willow tilted her head to the side, biting her lower lip. “Do you remember anything about Lela’s and Julien’s binding?”
Darcy searched her mind, forcing it to delve deeply, making it ache as a hazy memory surfaced. No solid images, per se, but she suddenly had a cold and overwhelmed feeling that slipped away quickly.
She shook her head. “Not really. When you said their names just now, I felt something cold and elusive. But I can’t hold on to it. I don’t…”
“It’s okay,” said Willow. “You know who they are?”
Darcy nodded.
“Lela thought she was destined for Jack. She was sure of it. So sure, in fact, when you weren’t present at the last Gathering beside Jack, she demanded a re-binding.”
“Tom told me a little about this. And I know the Gathering is tonight, and Jack wants—”
Willow held her hand up and continued. “Don’t worry about that right now. Just listen. Lela, she was so sure that she was destined for Jack, even when Julien had her pinned against a wall in Jack’s house—”
“Pinned against a wall?”
Willow nodded. “Yes. Even then, she stared at Jack desperately. She could see that he was bound to you, and yet she wanted him so badly, her desire almost made her miss what was right in front of her.”
Darcy raised her eyebrows.
“Julien,” said Willow. “Julien loved her. He asked if he could kiss her, and she was so sad, so alone, she submitted.”
“Then what happened?” murmured Darcy, drawn into Willow’s story.
“It was crazy intense. One second, they were two separate beings, then the next, they belonged to each other. If I didn’t hate her so much, it would have been fucking beautiful.”
A chill went down Darcy’s spine as she looked at Willow. “Why did she submit?”
“Because she couldn’t have who she thought she wanted. She had nothing to lose.”
Tombeur’s strong body and kind eyes flashed through her head. “Well, I’m not out of options. I want to be with—”
“Tombeur doesn’t love you like that. Never has. Never will.” Willow shook her head with finality, her eyes sorry. “Jack, on the other hand, has loved you like that since the first moment he ever saw you.”
“In the library,” whispered Darcy.
“Yes.” Willow nodded. “In the library.”
Darcy took a deep breath, remembering her fifteen-year-old self leaving social studies with two friends and heading to the library for study hall.
The only reason she had a clear memory of that day was because she’d walked into the large room talking and laughing, only to be blinded by the sun from a skylight shining directly in her eyes.
As a cloud passed over the sun, she’d looked straight ahead, into the dark eyes of a new student who sat, intense and alone, across the room.
In all her life, she’d never seen anything as beautiful as Jack staring back at her.
He’d gazed at her fiercely, his beautiful face chiseled and stunned as he stopped her heart with his eyes.
She’d been pulled over to a table by her girlfriend and lost contact with him, but felt the heat of his eyes on her back long after she’d sat down.
She knew he was watching her, and it had been the single most exciting day of her life as her blood raced hot and electric through her veins.
She’d captured the notice of the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen, and after that, she’d been obsessed with Jack Beauloup.
Except that it hadn’t led to anything.
They’d been in a play together. He’d mostly ignored her, and then he’d moved away, never to be seen or heard from again. So how was it, over twenty years later, that Darcy Turner was expected to feel something real for him?
And yet.
She knew that their story hadn’t ended that day in the library.
She knew that there was more to it because what her brain couldn’t remember, her heart wouldn’t forget.
Did she love him? Of course not. Was there more to the story?
Yes. In her heart, she knew that what Jack, Tombeur, Tallis, and Willow insisted was true.
She and Jack had history. The question was, did Darcy want to resume that history or start over again?
Surely there was bad with the good. If she could remember it, would she choose it?
Would she choose Jack, or would she choose a fresh slate?
“How do I know I want that life?” Darcy asked her friend as tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t remember it. I don’t know if…if it’s…”
Willow leaned forward, reaching her hand out to Darcy, and Darcy grasped at her friend’s fingers, securing them, entwining them, through hers.
“Will you let me help you?”
Darcy searched her dark eyes helplessly.
Willow swallowed, reaching down to her bag with her free hand. When she raised her hand, she held a ginger jar half-full of green liquid, which jostled as she hefted it onto her lap.
“What is that?” asked Darcy.
“A memory potion.”
“Do you mean?”
“Yes. It should work like a movie in a dream. When you drink it, sit back, close your eyes, and open your mind.”
“And I’ll remember.”
“I don’t know exactly what you’ll see, kid, but you should see your life with Jack. You should see your memories.”
“And I’ll be able to hold on to them?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Willow. “My Nohkom said this is strong magic. And it’s meant for humans, not shifters. It could be unpredictable.” She released Darcy’s hands and took the ginger jar carefully, holding it out to Darcy like an offering.
Darcy held her friend’s eyes for a long moment before accepting the strange liquid. She held it up to the light, watching the swirls of green that seemed alive to her, that seemed to move purposefully in a circle, as though gathering, holding, and waiting.
“Will you stay with me?” asked Darcy softly, pushing a tear from her cheek into her hair.
“Of course.”
This was her favorite part of the entire play.
She knew if she stayed concealed behind the thick velvet, that she’d be left in peace to watch from the wings.
His fingertips pressed against the pulse in her throat. His lips dropped to hers. Her heart stopped. Her heart started again.
It’s you.
Long years apart, haunted by fiery copper eyes, and then…
His face eclipsed the sun.
Quid pro quo.
A bear and a wolf and an inhuman strength.
Control.
His hands everywhere. Touching, loving, learning, memorizing, seeking, taking…and she was giving, rising, offering, finding, desperately holding on to him, to them, to this feeling.
You belong to me, and I belong to you.
A monster.
The claws retract in the sunlight, and fear and anger break her heart.
He is gone.
He is drowning. He is dying. And I watch him die. He shuts me out. He doesn’t love me. And I can’t bear it…because I love…I love…
In love. In danger.
Atrocious pain. For me.
I leave him or he will die because of me.
Now I am drowning. Now I am dying.
And I love him. I belong to him. I am bound to him.
What is bound cannot be broken.
“Jack!” she screamed, blinded, gasping, reaching.
“Darcy! Darcy, breathe! Darcy! Oh god, kid, please breathe!”
Darkness.